#173: Chipping Away
Chipping Away
I’m Todd L. Burns, and welcome to Music Journalism Insider, a newsletter about music journalism. I highlight some of the best stuff I hear, read, and watch every week; publish news about the industry; and interview writers, scholars, and editors about their work. My goal is to share knowledge, celebrate great work, and expand the idea of what music journalism is—and where it happens. Questions, comments, concerns? You can reach me anytime at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. And if you're not already subscribed to the newsletter, you can do so at musicjournalisminsider.com.
Today in the newsletter: Interviews with country music expert Hunter Kelly, noise music enthusiast Dr. Stephen Graham, and psychedelic music explainer Joe Molloy. Plus! Reading and podcast recommendations! And more! But first…
Can (Sadly) Confirm
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Reading List
- Kurt Loder writes a requiem for MTV News
- Seth Abramovitch compiles an oral history of MTV News
- Laio explains how the weather changes the music we want to hear
- Jaime Brooks has some opinions on music festivals
- Niko Stratis celebrates cigarettes in song
- Simon Reynolds describes wiki-fear
- Kelly Bishop remembers the women who helped build the rave scene
- Christopher Heinei profiles Jack Rabid, publisher of The Big Takeover
- Ethan Iverson tackles Philip Ewell’s new book
- Tamar Herman wonders whether Korea’s ticketing system is one to emulate
Lede Of The Week
“What’s the most, and least, you’ve ever paid on a concert ticket? Whatever it was, I bet you that those prices are doubled nowadays for equivalent tickets.” - Tamar Herman
Q&A: Hunter Kelly
Hunter Kelly is a Nashville-based radio host and music journalist who has worked in the country music world for many years. Currently, he’s the host of Proud Radio on Apple Music Country. In this excerpt from our interview, Hunter explained what he would like to see more of in music journalism right now.
We need journalists who can take a bird’s eye view of trends and also approach the music industry with a deep sense of history. Very few artists or situations are going to be completely unprecedented, so it’s good to have a sense of what’s come before so you can make sense of what is happening now.
I’m also encouraged to see younger music journalists in Nashville not acting like an extension of the record label’s publicity department. You can just go and regurgitate the talk points the artist’s marketing team wants to stress, or you can work to draw your own insights into the music and the message the artists and their teams are putting out there.
What's one tip that you'd give a music journalist starting out right now?
Be prepared for constant change. Along the way you’ll pick up incredible skills. Just be ready to do a little bit of everything. Don’t box yourself mentally on who you are and what you do. There are opportunities everywhere, and your career will be more interesting if you just keep moving forward. I think of myself like a fish just swimming forward against the current and that’s served me well.
Read the full interview with Hunter here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Hunter Kelly:
The LGBTQ+ community in Republican-led states is in crisis. We have felt the crush of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation especially hard in Tennessee this year, and our queer youth desperately needs affirming spaces that are going to help counter the message that they are defective, hated and unwanted coming out of the Tennessee State Capitol building.
That’s why the work of the Just Us program at Oasis Center here in Nashville is more important than ever. Oasis Center provides a safe, affirming space for homeless and at-risk youth. The Just Us program specifically serves LGBTQ+ youth, who are at elevated risk of homelessness [relative to] their straight peers.
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Can (Happily) Confirm
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Podcasts!
- Hua Hsu joins the Longform podcast
- John Klaess discusses Breaks in the Air: The Birth of Rap Radio in New York City on New Books in Music
- Rave New World memorializes the glory holes that LA has erased
- Money 4 Nothing chats about music and AI
- Insect sounds are the subject of the latest Twenty Thousand Hertz podcast
Q&A: Dr. Stephen Graham
Dr. Stephen Graham is the head of Arts & Humanities at Goldsmiths. Initially, he aimed for rock stardom, but he eventually “saw research as an applied version of what I was doing already: gathering information and forming opinions about music that might help me experience life a little differently.” His new book is Becoming Noise Music: Style, Aesthetics, and History. In this excerpt from our interview, Stephen explains the idea behind the book.
Becoming Noise Music hears in noise music a uniquely powerful evocation of what it means to be human: never to arrive at a final, fixed meaning but instead always to be struggling towards ("becoming") some release. This was the starting point: once I started writing what I thought was an analytical book, it also became one of history and journalism, in that it tells the ‘story’ of noise as a genre (albeit through its aesthetics rather than as an oral history or some other form of that kind of social research).
How did you come to this subject for a book? What made the topic so interesting to you?
I’ve been fascinated by noise and similar forms of music for over two decades now: both because of their unusual “position” in the cultural world, between categories, but also because of their aesthetic evocativeness. They are endlessly new, and therefore, endlessly interesting.
How did you go about writing the actual book?
I had two young kids at the time (still do, to some extent!), so I squeezed the writing into breaks I had from them, or during cartoon time. This led to a bit of a fragmented experience, but this suits me well as I tend to write in bursts rather than over sustained periods. I actually wrote quite a bit of it on my phone in bed at night, a time of quiet and great reflection, which was very enjoyable. My big focus is always to get words down on the page and then to spend a lot of time refining and polishing later: the art is in the editing for me.
Read the full interview with Stephen here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Stephen Graham:
Café Oto, a great venue worth patronising!
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Stuff You Gotta Watch
Stuff You Gotta Watch celebrates music journalism in video form. This week’s column is by Ana Leorne.
Chris Blackwell once described Studio One as “the Motown of Jamaica.” But if we consider the year the former was established... we learn it actually predates Barry Gordy’s Detroit-based empire by nearly four years, making Motown instead the Studio One of America.
In any case, it comes as no surprise that telling the story of this legendary studio and record label requires a mastodon of a documentary, comprising four hours including extras. Director Stuart Baker even managed to convince founder Clement “Coxsone” Dodd to feature, despite his famous aversion to being interviewed. It’s Dodd who sets the tone for the entire narrative, explaining how his own life became irrevocably intertwined with music and how this passion led to the creation of an institution that would help shape ska, reggae, dub, and dancehall.
While inventive editing – split-screen moments and colorful frames reminiscent of record sleeves – highlights the documentary's uniqueness and makes for a cohesive rhythm, Studio One Story's real treasure obviously lies in its content: extensive interviews, rare video footage, and all sorts of delightful anecdotes from those who made Studio One an essential cultural landmark.
Bits, Bobs
- Hua Hsu has won a Pulitzer
- Playback is a new Portuguese music magazine
- Budweiser has created a music magazine inside a 12-pack
- Saddle Mountain Post is a new independent country music magazine
- A few hip-hop ads over the years that are… something
Trivia Time
Who were the first two guests on Hunter Kelly’s Proud Radio?
Cannot Confirm (But Want To Believe)
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Q&A: Joe Molloy
Joe Molloy is a writer and DJ from Detroit, currently working as an educator. He is the author of Acid Detroit: A Psychedelic Story of Motor City Music, a book which is “informed by the theoretical writing of the late music journalist Mark Fisher, particularly his notion of acid communism, which is a project dedicated to breaking out of myopia and building a better world.” In this excerpt from our interview, Joe explains how he wrote the book.
I’d sit down every day and try to write for at least two hours. Sometimes in those two hours I hadn’t written a single sentence I felt good about, other times I felt like I was really onto something, but that discipline was essential. I’d always have a very loose structure of a chapter's themes and key points, but from there it was always about starting to get words down on the page. I was also always listening to music. I can’t think of a single writing session that was done in silence.
In my youth, I was a cross-country runner, and I applied what I knew from long-distance running to the writing process. Like those 13-mile runs, my philosophy was one of pacing and keeping up endurance. It was all about chipping away at it stride by stride, day by day. Pounding the rock.
Read the full interview with Joe here.
A Cause Worth Supporting
From Joe Molloy:
I've selected a combined fundraiser for two of the schools I teach at: Redford Union High School and Hilbert Middle School's music departments. These programs are underfunded and could use additional resources to help them buy instruments and sheet music, participate in festivals, and much more. I care deeply about these students and their success, and if you had the chance to meet them or hear them sing, you would too. It's a perfect cause for those of us who are patrons of the arts. (The ongoing fundraiser began 4 years ago, and is still so far from its goal).
Check out all of the causes highlighted by folks I’ve interviewed.
Academic Stuff
- New issues: Indiana Theory Review, Music Therapy Perspectives and Metal Music Studies
- Registration is open for the 59th Royal Musical Association Annual Conference
- Call for Papers: OBERTO conference 2023 [Proposals due June 1]
- Registration is open for Transpacific East Asia: Transformations and Trajectories in Music and Sound
- Registration is open for Sonic Intersections: Music, Arts And Sciences Conference
The Closing Credits
Thanks for reading! In case you’ve missed any special features, I’ve published a number of them in the newsletter, including articles about music journalism history, what music journalism will be like in 2221, and much more. You can check out all of that here.
I also do a recurring column in the newsletter called Notes On Process. The premise is simple: I share a Google Doc with a music journalist where we go into depth on one of their pieces. It hopefully provides an insight into how music writers do their work. You can check out all editions of Notes On Process here.
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Trivia Time Answer
The first two guests on Hunter Kelly’s radio show were Brandy Clark and Brandon Stansell.
A Final Note
Thanks for reading! I make playlists every single week. Check them here! And full disclosure: my day job is at uDiscover Music, a branded content online magazine owned by Universal Music. This newsletter is not affiliated or sponsored in any way by Universal, and any links that relate to the work of my department will be clearly marked.
Feel free to reach out to me via email at music.journalism.insider@gmail.com. On Twitter, it’s @JournalismMusic. Until next time...